The centre-left Sueddeutsche Zeitung has the largest circulation of the quality broadsheets in Germany. The paper says it reaches 1.1m readers every day, and that those readers are "highly educated and at the top of the career ladder". Despite its relative success, it has also had to cope with the effects of Germany's economic difficulties. In 2003 it had to close down the regional edition it had launched for Germany's most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia.